While the Gulf swelters, Oman keeps cool secrets: the emerald monsoon mist of Salalah’s khareef, and the mountain air of Jebel Akhdar high above the plains—an unexpected, refreshing side of Arabia.

For three months a year the monsoon turns the Dhofar mountains improbably green, waterfalls running where the desert stood. Northward, Jebel Akhdar sits two thousand metres up, terraced with roses and pomegranate, cold enough at night for a fire.

You move between them in privacy, hosted in the Sultanate’s most soulful enclaves with days set to your rhythm and a table composed around your preferences. It is hidden Oman at its most serene—and at precisely the season most travellers write it off.